I have to make some exhaust flanges. Not, they are not available, in any way, shape or form. They are very unusual! I had a friend offer to have his machinist do them, and I supplied a sheet of 1/4" stainless. I was lead to believe they would be water jetted. My buddy called back, after conferring with his machinist, and he quoted me a price of 38$ per flange, but it sounded like he was machining them, not cutting. Since I need around 16 of these, I turned down the offer ( I also needed about a dozen smaller pieces cut, as well) Anyone know a good water jet place? or about how much it costs to get things done? My pieces were around 3 x 5" with 2 larger holes, and 4 or 5 small ones.
Water jet cutting is expensive because of the consumables but, it is the cleanest way to cut stainless. It will also leave the least amount of clean up. Laser will also do a good job with just a little more clean up afterwards. Plasma will work but it's not real clean and flame cutting doesn't work.
Plugging in 1/4 inch stainless (304) to an on line calculator for average finish yields about 10 inches per minute. A 3 X 5 flange is 16 inches around (if square) and works out to 256 inches. That works out to about 1/2 hour of work for just the flange 16 x's. Labor rate?
There's a place in Honeybrook, Pa. that does water jet cutting. My son-in-law works there. BenCo Technology. You can google them.
@chopolds Just throwing this out there.... Do you have the drawings of exactly what you need? Even better if you have it in .eps or vector file. I have access to a plasma table that will cut up to 4'x4'x1/2" Not sure what a sheet of 1/4" SS is going for these days... would be cost of material plus a little to cover expenses... I am in Northern MD so you could either pick up or pay the shipping costs on the finished parts. If you're interested, PM me and I can look at the parts you need and get you a price. Chappy we cut this out on it not to long ago...its about 1/8"
I build a bunch of flanges and different things for guys here at the HAMB. I stock a boatload of header flanges also, I did shut down my web site but I can do the flanges for you for about 8.00 ea materials included . send me a sketch and I will give you a hard number
Well, pops 29 sounds like a bargain to me. I paid $24 to McMaster Carr for a 1/4" thick by 4"x4" stainless steel. If you need 16 pieces and he will charge 8 bucks each including material, that's only $128 total.
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